Usain Bolt anchored the Jamaican 4×100-meter relay to gold in the final event of the World Track and Field Championships on Sunday, his third title of the meet that matched him with three of the greatest U.S. sprinters of all time.
Bolt took the baton close to even with
American Justin Gatlin,
but the U.S.’ final exchange was not as clean as Jamaica’s. Bolt opened up
daylight quickly and held on to win in 37.36 seconds. Jamaica has won
the 4×100 at five straight major international championships dating to the 2008
Olympics.
“I wasn’t really worried about Justin,” Bolt said, according to The
Associated Press. “I knew if he got the baton in front of me, I could catch
him. So it was just going out there to run as fast as possible.”
The U.S. got silver in 37.66. Great Britain crossed
third but was disqualified for a pass out of the exchange zone, elevating
Canada to bronze.
Bolt went three for three in gold medals
(100, 200, 4×100) for the fourth time at a worlds or Olympics in his career. He
now owns eight career World Championships gold medals, tying the record also
held by Allyson Felix,
Michael Johnson and Carl Lewis.
Bolt also won his 10th career World Championships medal of any color,
matching him with Lewis for the most by a man. Only Jamaican-turned-Slovenian
Merlene Ottey has won more (14). Bolt said at the London Olympics he lost all
respect for Lewis, who has criticized Jamaica’s drug-testing program.“I’ll continue dominating,” Bolt said, according to the AP. I’ll continue to work hard. For me, my aim is to continue hard into the greatness thing.”
Bolt celebrated the 4×100 relay victory by flashing a smile after crossing the finish line, flipping the golden baton, taking off his Puma spikes, throwing them into the Moscow crowd and performing a barefoot dance on the track.
“I’m not even sure which country it’s from,” Bolt said, according to the AP. “It just went along with the music, so I did it.”
The U.S. finished the nine-day meet with the most
overall medals (25 to Russia’s 17) but did not lead (or co-lead) the gold medal
count for the first time at a worlds since the first edition in 1983.
Russia won seven golds, and the U.S. took six, its lowest total since 2001.
Jamaica also won the women’s 4×100 relay in
41.29 seconds on Sunday. The U.S., slowed by a poor relay exchange from Alexandria Anderson
to third leg English Gardner, crossed second in 42.75, .03 of a second behind
France. France was disqualified about three horus later, handing silver to the
U.S. and bronze to Great Britain. Jamaican anchor Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce
became the second woman to win three golds at a single worlds, joining Felix.
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